Alyson Winchester: Meeting Bobby Singer
by WaywardDaughter18
Summary: Hunter Bobby Singer meets the Winchester family for the first time. Fluff and some angst. Content Warning for discussion of character death. Same AU as 'The New Adventures of Alyson Winchester'.


**Author's Note: Just a reminder, this is an AU, so some of the events that happened in the show are a little different here. The fire happened when Alyson was 6 months old, for example. I've added things that I made up, like Jim Murphy and John Winchester being in Vietnam together. **

**Fluff and angst. Content Warning for discussion of character death. Beta'd by Alexofthegarden, CrzedPanda, and Edge_of_Clairvoyance.**

**Aly is about 8 months old in this, Sam is 8 years old, and Dean is 12 years old.**

~ ~ spn ~ ~ spn ~ ~

Bobby Singer wasn't expecting such a scene of domestic bliss when he walked into the kitchen.

Jim Murphy had called him; said there was a new guy, an old friend of Jim's actually, but a newbie in the hunting life, and he wanted Bobby to show him the ropes.

Jim had mentioned that they had served together in 'Nam, so Bobby was expecting a burly guy with a buzz cut and scars, chomping a cigar.

Now Bobby stood in the kitchen doorway behind Betty, a hunter's widow who had become Jim's right-hand woman both at home and in church after her husband was killed in the line of duty. She crossed the kitchen and began to busy herself at the counter.

There was a family sitting around the table- a rare sight among hunters, as most people in the hunting life were loners. Their faces all turned expectantly towards the door when Betty brought Bobby in.

There were two young boys- well, one looked like he could almost be a teen, thin with lanky limbs, short light brown hair and the clearest green eyes Bobby had ever seen- and the other boy was smaller, definitely younger, with longer dark brown hair that flopped over his forehead and hid his eyes.

Most unexpected was the baby in the high chair. She had light blond hair and the exact same green eyes as the older boy, and she was liberally coated with a green liquidy substance. There was a man sitting in a chair facing her- he had broad shoulders, dark brown tousled hair and dark eyes, and he was holding a tiny spoon and a small pink plastic bowl filled with the same green substance that was on the child.

Jim turned from the stove. "Hey, Bobby," he said pleasantly, stepping over to shake Bobby's hand and give him a strong hug and clap on the back.

The other man stood up, setting the bowl and spoon on the tray of the high chair, and grabbed a roll of paper towels that was on the table next to him, quickly tearing one off and wiping his hands with it.

"Bobby Singer, this is John Winchester," Jim Murphy introduced.

John stepped towards Bobby, holding his hand out, and glanced down, then wiped his palm again before proffering it.

"Sorry," John said with an apologetic grin, "we're trying strained peas tonight, and as usual it's a mess." John's handshake was strong.

"Dad, grab it!" The younger boy shouted, and they all looked at the baby.

She had picked up the bowl, shaking it back and forth, and John leapt forward as she tossed the bowl over the edge of the tray.

He didn't catch it in time, and it clattered to the floor, spraying the remainder of the strained peas all over John's shoes and pants legs.

"Uh-oh!" The baby said, peering over the edge of the chair.

Both boys burst out laughing, and the baby raised her head, her face lighting up, and joined in with the boys. She slapped her hands on the tray of the high chair, snorting with laughter.

John squatted down and picked up the bowl, then took it over to the sink. "Sorry, Jim," he said with chagrin.

"She does this every night, Dad!" The younger boy exclaimed, bouncing on his chair. "Why do you always let her get the bowl? Silly Aly!" He grinned at the baby, and she grinned back at him.

John sighed and tore more paper towels off of the roll, sitting down and trying to wipe the liquified peas off of his shoes and pants.

Jim motioned to each child as he said their name. "Bobby, this is Dean," - he was the lanky kid with green eyes- and those eyes studied Bobby a little suspiciously- "Sam," Sam peered shyly up from underneath his bangs- "and Alyson." At the sound of her name, the baby looked up and gave a happy little screech. John smiled at her and reached out to tweak her nose, and she grinned at him and tried to grab his hand.

"This is Bobby Singer, he's an old friend of mine." Jim explained.

Baby Alyson picked up the spoon and was trying to guide it to her mouth. She couldn't quite get it in, so she settled for waving it, and then over the edge of the tray it went also, landing on the floor with a metallic clatter.

She leaned over the edge of the chair again, repeating "uh-oh", in a matter-of-fact voice, before looking to the boys for their reaction.

They laughed again, and Dean rolled his eyes. "Why does she gotta throw everything on the floor?" he asked.

"Because y'all respond to her, and now she thinks it's a game." Betty's voice was amused.

John stood up and reached down to take the baby's bib off.

"I'll get her, John, you go on and talk with the men," Betty said. "Come here, little miss." She said to the baby, who grinned up at her.

"Let's go into the library." Jim led the way.

Once the men were seated, each holding a glass filled with 2 fingers of good Scotch, John began to talk. He told his story in serious, halting tones, stopping more than once to press his fingers to his eyes to prevent tears from falling.

"There was a fire," John started tonelessly, "It originated in the nursery. Firefighters could never figure out the cause of it, it appeared- _spontaneous_ in nature." He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he was staring into the distance. "It went through the house so quickly, I barely had time to get the kids out. I went back in for my wife, but by then-" He exhaled, and brought his hand up to his eyes, rubbing them briefly. "The firefighters had to drag me out of the house, saying it was too dangerous for me. I almost clocked one of them." He gave a humorless chuckle. "Here's where-it gets-_off."_ He looked at Bobby, and then at Jim, who gave him a slight nod.

"I had fallen asleep in front of the TV, and woke up hearing my wife screaming my daughter's name. I ran upstairs and into the nursery, and I saw-" He stopped for a moment, lost in the memory. He frowned briefly. "I _thought_ I saw-a dark figure standing next to her crib. I looked around for my wife, and I heard-or _thought_ I heard her exhale. I just _happened _to look up-" He paused and pressed his fingertips to his eyes. His eyes were shiny when he lowered his hand. "I looked up, and she was _there_-on the ceiling, and there was blood- her abdomen had been slit open and there was blood on her nightgown, I think-I think it dripped into Aly's crib, there was some near her head." John grimaced.

"You didn't tell me that." Jim said quietly.

John took a swallow of whiskey. "I had forgotten about it until just now." He looked at Bobby again. "I started to look around, try and figure out how to get her down from there-I wasn't thinking clearly, you know, I should've been questioning how the _hell _she'd gotten up there in the first place, but you know-"

Bobby nodded. "All you're thinkin' about is gettin' them safe."

"Right," John said. "The fire just started then, out of nowhere, there was a burst of flames. This all took about 5 seconds to happen, but it's one of those situations where it seemed to take a long time and also happen in an instant."

"I know what ya mean." Bobby agreed, and Jim nodded.

"I grabbed Aly out of her crib and ran to get the boys. I woke Dean up and handed him the baby, he took her outside. Then I grabbed Sam, I couldn't wake him for some reason. The hospital thinks it may have been due to smoke inhalation, but he wasn't around the fire for that long, so I don't know…" John trailed off, staring into the middle distance again.

The three men sat silently for a couple of minutes. Then John shifted and began to talk again. "Everyone told me I was crazy. Well, not in so many words, but...you know. Suggested that I _thought_ I had seen Mary on the ceiling, that I was just suffering from _Post Traumatic Stress._ I'm a Vet, you know, so that automatically makes me a little nutty, _apparently._ I just-" He sighed heavily. "I stopped talking to people about it when it was clear that none of them believed me, and they didn't want to listen to me trying to figure it out. I was in town one day and noticed a little side street I had never paid attention to before, so I went down it. Missouri Mosely had a little storefront there where she used to do her thing. I went in, and before I had even finished walking up to the counter she was talking to me. Said she could sense a great tragedy around me, and darkness. We talked for a long time, and she agreed to go- look at the house with me."

Bobby Singer nodded. "I've met her, she's good people."

John raised his eyebrows. "Does she often help- hunters?"

"Some." Bobby replied. "She tries to keep it quiet, psychics aren't really...held in high regard by hunters."

John took a sip of Scotch. "We did a walk-through. When she got to the nursery, she said she could feel the evil there. That there _had_ been a dark figure, and that it was interested in the occupant of the crib, but she didn't know why. She couldn't tell me much more-"

There was an abrupt knock on the door and then it opened, and the younger boy-Sam- ran in. "Dad, me 'n Dean are goin' outside!"

John gave the boy a stern look, his voice a gentle reprimand. "Haven't we talked about not bursting in on people? You wait to be told 'come in' before you open the door."

Sam ducked his head, his face flushing with embarrassment. "Sorry," he mumbled. Then he raised his head and looked at John. "You said you'd play ball with us after dinner! C'mon, Dad, pleeeease?" He wheedled, giving his father a look which could have rivaled a sad puppy.

Jim chuckled. "Who can resist that face? You _did_ say that, John." He looked at Bobby. "Do you mind staying? There's some meatloaf left over if you're hungry, I can make you up a plate."

Bobby had planned on picking something up at a drive-through later, so the prospect of eating a home-cooked meal was appealing. "I think I could manage that, thank you."

The men stood up, and Pastor Jim turned towards the kitchen. "You go on with them, I'll bring it out to you." He waved at Bobby, who had started to follow him.

Betty had come into the living room, holding Aly. The baby held her arms out to John, who took her and set her on his hip. They went out onto the front porch.

The boys were running around on the wide expanse of grass in the yard, tagging each other.

"Dad, come play!" Sam called.

"In a minute, Sammy, I've got the baby." John responded.

"Hi Alybug!" The boy smiled and waved at them. The baby waved back, giggling.

She kicked her feet and leaned her head on John's chest. John shifted her in his arms, and she looked over at Bobby. She sat up.

John noticed. "Can you say hi?" He asked her gently.

She looked up at him and then over at Bobby, tilting her head like she was considering something. Then she leaned towards Bobby, holding out her arms.

"She wants to go to you, do you want to hold her?" John asked.

"Oh, uhh-" Bobby had very little experience with children and next to none with babies, but he reached out and took her.

"Well now," Bobby said, feeling a little discomfited.

She played with one of the buttons on his flannel briefly, then looked up at his face.

"Uh, hi there," he said uneasily.

She reached up and ran her little fingers through the tangle of beard on the sides of his face, and then patted his beard like she was petting a cat. Bobby didn't know what to make of it.

John chuckled, scratching the heavy stubble on his chin. "She does the same thing with me."

Bobby looked down at the little girl. She smiled at him, and then laid her head on his chest.

Sam had come up the steps. "I guess she likes you, mister!" He grinned, and the baby responded with a happy-sounding screech.

Jim came out onto the porch, carrying a tray laden with glasses of lemonade and a plate of food. He set it on a small side table. "Here's drinks for when you get thirsty." He told Sam. Jim gestured to the plate and held his arms out. "I'll trade you dinner for the baby."

Bobby handed the little girl over to him, and then picked up the plate. He sat in a wicker chair and Jim sat in a rocking chair and rocked Alyson.

"All right, kiddo, let's play ball." John ruffled Sam's hair and they went down the porch steps.

"This is one of his good nights," Jim said quietly, looking over at Bobby. "He's been sunk in a deep depression, was barely taking care of them. Dean called me-I'm kind of a distant uncle to the kids, and he knows to contact me if there are ever any problems. I went and got them, brought them here, they've been here for a couple weeks now."

That was Jim Murphy to a T, wouldn't think anything of just leaving to travel several hundred miles to pick up a family in need and bring them back to his house to stay.

"It's been rough for him," Jim said, "Everyone dismissed him, and once the police concluded that he didn't set the fire, they dropped the investigation. He was co-owner of a garage, and he just up and left everything. Sold his share of the garage to his partner and went on the road with the kids. It's an odd coincidence that we both ended up in the hunting life, after we had served together."

"I've heard a lot of hunters say that, that they had a lotta weird coincidences in their lives which led them into hunting, but I don't know if I believe that." Bobby said skeptically. "You can start seein' things that aren't really there, like patterns or coincidences, if ya just look hard enough."

Jim smoothed Aly's hair. "Well, the way I look at it is this. Just as some people are called to God, to serve Him, others may be—called-to the supernatural. It may be that there's something within them that responds to it, or that they somehow attract the supernatural to them."

"That's mighty open-minded for a man of God." Bobby raised his brows.

Jim chuckled. "After you've seen some of the things I've seen, continuing to have a closed mind would be foolish. There are many things out there that are unseen by most people, and only some of us get to move into the world of unseen things."

"I dunno if that's a good thing or a bad thing." Bobby said ruefully.

"A little of both, I would think." Jim smiled down at the baby, who had begun to rub her eyes with her little fists.

Bobby continued eating and Jim continued rocking, and they watched John tossing a baseball with his sons.

Alyson was leaning on Jim's chest, her eyes closed. She jerked awake when the boys came thundering up the stairs, cheeks ruddy, both breathing hard. Dean grabbed a glass of lemonade and began to gulp it down.

Aly sat up and yawned.

"Guess it's time for her to go to bed." John walked over and picked the little girl up.

"Want me to make her a bottle, Dad?" Dean asked.

"No, I'll get it." As John turned, the door opened and Betty came out, holding a baby bottle full of milk. "It's about that time." She said.

Alyson reached for the bottle, making excited huffs. John shifted her in his arms and took the bottle. She grabbed for it, putting it in her mouth.

Jim stood up. "Sit down here, John, she likes to rock."

John turned to the boys. "Showers for both of you tonight, and then an hour of TV." He sat in the rocker, settling Aly on his lap.

"I call dibs!" Dean said quickly.

"Aww, no fair!" Sam complained. "You always take too long an' you use up all the hot water!"

Dean smirked. "I'm so _cool,_ I need a lot of hot water!"

Sam huffed, rolling his eyes.

"How about I set a 5 minute timer for you both?" John asked. "That way there will be enough hot water."

"_Five minutes?" _Dean griped.

"In the Marines we got 3 minutes to shower, count yourself lucky." Jim told the boys.

"C'mon, squirt." Dean pushed Sam's shoulder.

"I'm not a _squirt!"_ Sam said hotly. "Race ya!" He charged at the door, and both boys ran inside.

The baby held on to the bottle with one hand and stretched her leg out, holding on to her foot with her other hand.

John looked down at her. "Is that a good bottle?" He asked.

She smiled around the nipple and said, "Guh!" She let go of her foot and began to play with the placket of John's shirt and smooth her hand over it.

Bobby felt uncomfortable suddenly, like he was intruding on their domesticity. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, Jim..."

Jim looked at him. "I was thinking that the next time you have something simple like a salt and burn, you could call John, bring him along with you and show him the ropes?"

"Oh, sure." Bobby agreed. "We all gotta start somewhere, right?"

"I've been teaching John about research, and he's a quick study. Got a mind like a steel trap." Jim tapped the side of his head.

John looked uncomfortable. "Well, I don't know about that-"

"You led a battalion outta 'Nam and you saved my life." Jim told him. "Don't be humble."

The bottle sagged out of Alyson's mouth as she fell asleep. John removed the bottle and Jim took it from him. John shifted the baby up onto his shoulder and began to pat her back. "I'll be back in a few, gotta put her down to sleep and check to make sure the boys aren't flooding the bathroom." He went into the house, humming to the baby.

Bobby looked at Jim. "Family man. That's different."

Jim shrugged. "Yeah, well...he had two choices. Believe everyone else when they told him he was imagining everything, and forget about it. Or stand by what he saw, and try to discover what really happened. It's not an easy road to travel, but John's never been one to pick easy. And you know what it feels like to lose someone you love, and that burning desire to avenge their death."

Bobby nodded. "Yeah, I do know." He said softly. "He got weapons yet?"

"He's got a few guns and knives. I'm advising him of what else he needs as I teach him the lore. Like I said, he's a fast learner and he remembers pretty much everything you tell him, _and_ everything he reads. He'll do well." Jim said confidently.

"And I figure he's already got a lot of basic knowledge about how to handle guns and hand to hand."

"He's a little out of practice, so I set up a shooting range in the woods out back."

The door opened and John came out again. The men all looked at each other. "Well, guess I should be goin'." Bobby held his hand out to John, and the men shook. "I'll call ya when I get a hunt."

"Thanks. It was good to meet you." John said.

Bobby shook Jim's hand. "Thanks for dinner, been a while since I had home cookin'."

"Well, you're always welcome here, you know." Jim said with a smile.

Bobby raised his hat and then re-settled it. "See ya around." He walked down the porch steps to his truck. As he was driving away, he thought about the family he had just met. Would John be able to handle being a father and a hunter? How would the kids adapt to that, having a father who hunted the things that go bump in the night? John was gonna need all the help he could get- the hunting life could be harsh and cruel, and take a lot out of a person. He didn't think he'd be able to help John with parenting, but he knew he could teach him a few things, share his knowledge, and offer his friendship. Hunters needed to have as many allies and friends as they could get.

**~ ~ spn ~ ~ spn ~ ~**

**If this is your first time reading one of my fics, and you'd like to read more about Alyson, please check my page for more stories (and don't forget to leave a review!).**


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